PART II

THE COUNTRIES OF ASIA

CHAPTER I
TURKEY—THE THRESHOLD OF ASIA

IT is perhaps appropriate that we should commence the study
of the countries and regions of Asia with modern Turkey.
The Turks are essentially an Asiatic race; the Oriental
;haracter of Turkey has long been recognized by its inclusion as
>ne of the countries of the ' Near East'. Yet modern Turkey
s becoming modernized and Europeanized under the guidance
rf Mustapha Kemal Pasha at a rate almost without parallel in
he annals of history* Miss Grace Ellison, in a recently published

FIG. 30.—The present extent of Turkey.
ook,1 has summarized the creed of Kemal Pasha, not inaptly,
5 ' we will be modern and Turkish'.
So important is the new outlook in its influence on the
evelopment of Turkey that we will follow the course of briefly
capitulating the main points of Turkish history before pro-
ceding to an account of the geography of the country.
In the latter part of the thirteenth century, the former
sljukian dominions in Asia Minor were already broken up into
1 Turkey To-day, 1928.
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